How To Survive A Zombie Attack: Improvised Seige Mechanics

I recently started a new short-term campaign for some friends, using Dolmenwood and The Black Hack. At one point, they were celebrating Thistlemote's (one of the PCs, a woodgrue) birthday by having a huge bash in the Laughing Pig, their town's tavern.

Some time after midnight, a Vague began. They are in the middle of winter, and occasionally during winter in the Dolmenwood an unseason of mists and undeath occurs. They see, through the fog, a horde of horrible figures shambling towards the town. I wanted a dawn of the dead style scene where our heroes try to fend off zombies that are punching their way through the windows and doors of a ramshackle building and they have to fight to survive and protect the villagers trapped with them, franticly shoring up the walls and taking out zombies with whatever's lying around.

So I improvised some siege survival mechanics.

The tavern has 20 HP, represented by a d20 placed in the centre of the table. As the tavern took damage and was shore up round by round it was fun to change the number on the die and have tension when it went down quite low.

I rolled 3d8 (1 HD per player, in line with Black Hack's recommendation of "HD budget" for a random encounter) to determine the number of zombies that were attacking, as an abstraction. I ended up with 20 again (very Magic: the Gathering, 20 HP a side...). As PCs whittled away the number of zombies from the pool, the number would go down. I treated it as that specific number of zombies, all with just 1 HP--but 20 zombies isn't really a "horde" so I kept the number of zombies vague for the players, with occasional hints like "there's about half of them left" or "you've downed most of them".

Each round, (which I abstracted as Minutes in the Black Hack way) each PC could do one thing, as usual, with the following alterations:

If they attack the horde of zombies, they make the attempt as normal, with each point of successful damage taking out that number of zombies from the pool.

In addition, each PC could ALSO command some underlings. In this case, there were three groups of underlings in the tavern: some visiting woodgrues, some burly porters, and a few villagers. One group for each of my PCs. In order to get any given group to listen, first a commander has to make a charisma test.

If they succeed then they can either get the underlings to do something, like attack the horde, or shore up the tavern's defenses. No matter what they did, the porters had a d8, the woodgrues a d6, and the villagers a d4. So if you get the villagers to shore up the tavern they roll a d4 and add that result to the tavern's HP--but instead you can get the villagers to attack the horde, in which case they'll do d4 damage to the pool of zombies. (I improvised sensible average numbers for the underlings attacks, like 8 for the villagers, 12 for woodgrues ranged attacks, etc).

At the end of each round, the zombie horde attacked, with no chance of failure since they're just battering the side of the tavern. I'd roll a d6 for each surviving HD of zombies. So while the number of zombies was above 16 I rolled three dice for damage, when it went below I rolled two dice, and when there were less than 8 I rolled a single die. In addition, I would use a d6 for damage dice while more than half the horde was intact, but once less than half were left I used d4s.

That's it!

This simple on-the-fly abstraction led to interesting decisions being made each round, a constant juggling of taking out zombies and shoring up the tavern, while finding other ways to end the seige (Thistlemote used her pied piper ability to lead away some zombies to drown in the river, while the elf Smiles-Tolerantly snuck out with some porters to find the thing that the leader of the zombie horde was after).

If I were to use it again, the numbers could use some rejiggering as at times it felt too easy to shore up the tavern for a lot of HP -- once there were less than half the zombies left it basically was inevitable that the players would succeed, sucking much of the tension away. I also had the NPC tavern owner act on his own each round, shoring up for a d6 of HP each time, which helped the PCs a -lot-. I think maybe individuals should only be able to shore up for a d4, or not at all and let it only be an underling group ability. Maybe some sort of test for a group to successfully shore up would be good too.

One thing I wish I'd thought of was to use morale checks for the underlings. Once a PC had succeeded in their charisma check to command a group, they never had to do one again and their underlings would always do what was commanded. I would do morale checks for the underlings, probably when they fail an attack or when zombies reach a certain threshold of damage. I'd planned on making them all do morale checks if the zombies breached the walls (at which point they'd start taking out underlings)--but the zombies never got in. I think the closest they got was when the tavern was at 5 HP, but the following round three different groups all shored it up and it was nearly full again.

I should say that this all was inspired by a distant memory of a seige system I'd read about on some OSR blog that I fully can't find anymore, so if I've copied someone else's work entirely-- whoops!

In any case, there you go: an easy, hackable system for a seige!

Laservision and Squeeze Focus: #RPGaDAY2020 4 - Vision

Today's #RPGaDAY2020 prompt is

Vision

I hate vision mechanics.

What's the difference between infravision and darkvision? Or low-light vision? How does dim light affect combat? What about fog, or magical darkness? What if my character is blinded? How far does my torch cast light? Is there an aura of dim light around that? What if I move during an enemies turn and change the lighting condition they're in? How far can I actually see? Which creatures have which kind of vision?

Et cetera, et fucking cetera...

There are -too many interactions- for there to be rules for these things. This is the clearest case I can think of where "rulings over rules" makes literally everything easier for both the GM and the players. Nobody wants to look this stuff up in play and nobody is going to remember all the different multi-dimensional Venn diagrams of overlap and superceding rules.

If it's dark, you can't see unless you have a light source or your species can see without light. Everything else is subject to ruling by the GM. DONE. (If you want infravision because it works in a weird way and exlains why old monsters have red eyes GO NUTS you don't need rules for that)

OH and like, the party where everyone's a dwarf or elf and can see in the dark but there's -one- human so they all have to use a torch? It means that in 90% of circumstances the see-in-the-dark ability just doesn't matter and the other 10% of the time it's just sending someone ahead to scout outside of the torchlight. It's a pet peeve and annoying (just like the party where everyone can move 30ft but the halfling only moves 25ft so -everyone- has to slow down, and this especially fucks the player who took an option that doubles their move speed), but I guess it can lead to some interesting inter-party conflict or tactical decisions. However I think it would be better to find differentiation between species like Arnold K suggests for the GLOG, with active abilities rather than passive ones. Or giving them an interesting trade-off.

Like:

Laservision: You can cause your eyeballs to shoot lasers that bounce off things and return to you carrying distance and temperature information, functioning over the length of a huge underground cavern. However, this causes your eyes to glow red, which can be noticed from a good distance away, and also there is a 1-in-8 chance your eyes overheat, causing you to go blind for 1d8 hours.

or

Squeeze Focus: By working your orbital muscles you can shift the liquid in your eyeballs to give you the ability to see miles further than usual, with perfect acuity. However, this gives you incredibly blurred vision for anything near you. This effect lasts for 2d4 rounds.

I think these would be immensely more fun to play with than just plain "60 foot darkvision".

Hanging by a: #RPGaDAY2020 3 - Thread

Today's #RPGaDAY2020 prompt is

Thread

Some years ago for the 200 Word RPG competition I came up with a mythologically-themed game called Strands of Fate, where the main resolution mechanic was two people each hold opposite ends of a length of string, pull sharply til it breaks, and compare the two halves to see who won.

I still think this is cool as hell and I want to learn how to lay out a nice PDF so I can put it up on itchio.

Some changes I'd make for clarity or to make it easier to play:

• a set of d12 tables of deity-concepts, to give the players guidance of what sort of concepts to use. Note the deliberate omission of Good and Evil:

d12 Deity Concepts:	Abstract	Worldly	Elemental
1	Love	Household	Fire
2	Honour	Agriculture	Water
3	Death	Hunting	Earth
4	Secrets	Sun	Air
5	War	Moon	Light
6	Life	Pain	Dark
7	Inspiration	Feasting	Thunder
8	Lies	Cooking	Slime
9	Peace	Healing	Void
10	Chaos	Fertility	Ice
11	Law	Craftwork	Magnetism
12	Revenge	Storms	Metal

• guidance for deciding on your deity's concepts:

"Each of you is a deity, responsible for some concept. It could be something abstract, like Love or Honour. It could be something mundane, like cheese or doorknobs. If you aren't sure, roll a d12 once, or twice and combine."

• changes to who you control and how:

"[...] Deities each have two Chosen, mortals who are their pawns in a story of adventure, betrayal, magic, and secrets. A Chosen could be a legendary champion, or they could be a milkmaid. They could be born of the gods and aware of their destiny, or they could be entirely unaware that they have been touched by the divine. Your pawns are yours to carry out your will, and do what you decree unless your will comes into conflict with another deity. Give your Chosen names, so that it hurts when they fail."

• clarity on collaborative narrative and structuring play:

"[...] A deity chosen by fate offers a simple quest: an artifact must be found, a war brought to an end, a competition won... In turn, each deity adds to the quest a detail related to their concept. Then a deity is chosen by fate to be the antagonist, who will offer obstacles to success. The protagonist's deity attempts to help, and other deities choose their own paths, making bargains and threats as they see fit. Take turns describing what the Chosen attempt to do, or what is happening in the world."

The result might be longer than 200 words but a little more playable. Now I just need to learn how to design a nice one-page rpg pdf.

Guiding Principles for Crooks

It occurs to me that as I go forward trying to make the systems I've created to run a thief job duet game for my partner into something other people can use, it would be wise to come up with some guiding principles. Or at least, make concrete the ones I've been implicitly using.

***

Crook

A game where a lone scoundrel does unusual jobs for unusual people.

1. Player-focused preparation. There is only one player; the GM should focus on things -that specific- player is likely to be interested in.

2. Alternative challenges. There is only one player; it is not possible to solve every problem by hitting it.

3. Alternative consequences. There is only one player; removing them from play should be avoided, but bad things can and will happen to them.

4. Rulings over rules. In the OSR/DIY sense: don't use a rule where you can make it work well on the fly.

5. Be permissive. Yes, and/but. No locked doors without stakes.

***

Thoughts on what these mean for making decisions when designing Crook:

1: What sorts of things is our crook going to be interested in?  The people who offer them jobs, and the nature of those jobs (I've been working on a job generator for this). The people and things that can help them accomplish those jobs. Something that they can do or work towards with the rewards from those jobs (are they paying off a debt? are they atoning for their past? do they want to prove themselves to a specific person? this likely should be a key trait established in when the player makes their crook). Organizations they can be part of, influence or be influenced by that will affect the other things they're interested in (thieves guilds, town guard, noble families, merchants, gangs, etc).

It's also important to tailor to the specific tastes of the player in your duet. Do they like dungeoncrawling more than courtly intrigue? Do they run off their mouth and start fights? Have they trained for years to become the perfect silent assassin? The jobs they're offered and the challenges they face should reflect the tastes of the player-as-a-person.

2: Combat shouldn't always be avoided, but there should be a focus on solving problems in a way that doesn't get the crook killed or incarcerated. This is important in all kinds of roleplaying adventure games, but I feel it's especially important in a duet. Ingenuity, insight, and non-linear thinking can be encouraged by giving the crook non-combat tools: immovable rods, vials of grease, and 1/day misty step as opposed to flasks of alchemists fire, acid arrows, and enchanted daggers (though if such standard combat items are given sparingly, that will encourage their use in creative ways).

This also can be reflected in environment design. Firey laterns swinging on long chains; precarious boulders above the narrow pass; loose bricks around the other side of the house. Traps that can be reset or redirected. Multiple paths in and out, and ways to manipulate the environment totally--what if there's a button on a pedestal that turns all the liquid in a 20 ft radius into blood? What if the inscription on the ceiling, when translated, teaches a chant that blocks out the sun for 2 minutes and then you forget the chant forever?

3: Preventing your one player from doing what they want to do by killing them or otherwise taking them out of play only serves to stop the game. Instead, have things break, or lost, or be stolen. Have important other people die. If a brutal combat does occur, have the crook be scarred or lose a limb or an eye. Or perhaps the baddies choose not to kill: it's always fun to have our protagonist hogtied and left to die in the desert--or perhaps thrown into a barrel, which is then chucked into a river heading toward a waterfall.

4: This is as much a reminder to myself to pare down rules wherever I can as it is guidance for running the game. That said, while making systems for Crook, I can and probably will go overboard, with full knowledge that I'll have to cut away all the cruft later. A rule of thumb I like for this is from Goblin Punch: "only write a rule when it is better than what you could come up with on the fly". And "better" can be defined in a number of ways as detailed in that post.

5: Others have been far more sophisticated than I with this, but nothing annoys me more than a locked door that is hard to open and if you fail there's no consequence other than not getting through the door. At least put some time pressure on: is the guardian automaton searching for the crook? Is a boulder rolling down the hallway towards us? Or give consequences for failure: the lock breaks and now you've made a wall. Or picking it sloppily triggers a visible blowdart aimed at the lock, or releases acid into the font of healing mineral water you're trying to get to. NO LOCKED DOORS WITHOUT STAKES.

If they want to do something and there's no consequence for failure, they do it! If you really want it to hurt for your Crook to try doing something mundane you can roll to see how many tries it takes and make them lose some spare change down a chasm each time they stumble (and I hope it's clear that that kind of pettiness is precisely what should be avoided). This goes for -abstract- doors especially. If our crook has a hunch about what kind of liquor the gang leader likes to drink as a digestif, they either can find out by asking the GM if they know or can do something interesting to find out (like sneaking into the leader's office and reading their diary, or bribing the manager of the member's-only bar, or beating it out of a lackey)--it should -not- be locked behind a knowledge roll that can be failed.

I think that'll do for now.

OH WAIT one thing I like about the name Crook is that it reminds me of "by hook or by crook" which is exactly the way in which our protagonist should try to accomplish things.

In My *DREAMS

After some time away (during which OSR turned within and G+ died), I wanted to see what was going on, and found SWORDDREAM (which for my own reference, tounge-in-cheekly backronyms to Second Wave of RPG Design, DIY Rules Everything Around Me).

(I found this post most helpful in understanding what *DREAM is and might be and what it isn't and shouldn't. Also the splat is there because not everyone dreams of swords.)

There are nine principles that people have pinned to the door and I wanted to put them here (again for my own reference have you seen how many fucking blogs are in my roll I can't keep track of anything) and jot down some thoughts on each one if I had any.

Copied from a post on Fish in the Pot, with my notes under each one:

THE NINE PRINCIPLES OF *DREAM

1. *DREAM stands against hate & prejudice in all forms. We seek to actively oppose bigotry & harassment in gaming communities. We create kind spaces.
        The less people like Pundit and Zak in the scene the better, and the more diversity among designers and players the better. Even if this started as a kneejerk reaction to the shitheads (which it really doesn't feel like), it's important to make this value crystal clear.

2. *DREAM works to be radically inclusive. We seek support and encourage creators, GMs, Players, and organizers from marginalized groups. And we seek to get better at this all the time.
        Same as above thought. Also: how can -I- be better at this?

3. *DREAM encourages the use of sensible tools for communication and consent.
        The X Card comes to mind. Are there other tools?

4. *DREAM opposes harassment and strives for non-toxic discourse. We value best intentions, we call in before calling out, and we start discussions before we make accusations. We seek to empower everyone to curate their spaces.
        Thoughts 1 and 2 again. Curating our own spaces is important. Nobody has to listen to shitheads if they don't want to, especially not in their own house. This isn't some rationalist agora. I feel like Principles 2-4 are ways of implementing the broader value expressed in 1.

5. *DREAM values creators & their work. We support equitable pay for professional creators and fair treatment for hobbyists.
        "Fuck you, pay me." But also, fair treatment for hobbyists means that if people hack your work, or criticize it--don't go after them.

6. *DREAM values a DIY approach to creation. We question gatekeeping, we take alternative approaches when traditional publishing models fail, and we believe anyone can make great games.

7. *DREAM values experimentation in game design & world-building.
        I like this a great deal.

8. *DREAM isn’t defined by, but is interested in: anti-canons, emergent story, generative worlds, kitbashing, non-violent play options, and more. And it is fine if some of these things contradict each other.
        So much of these specific interests are my own that I really want this scene to persist (and of course I should contribute to the pile if I really mean it), but to pick out one that challenges my preconceptions: -emergent story-. I have used Fate a bunch and enjoyed many so-called "storygames", but this feels like something different. Is it in the OSRian sense, where the story comes out of what the players actually do in response to the neutral-abiter-DM's in-game situations -as opposed to- having written out a plot and characters etc? Not like to railroad the PCs but like... are emergent narratives the opposite of adventure paths and box text? This, above all, for me, warrants exploration. A delight of OSR/DIY/artpunk(and now *DREAM) is the rich, dense items in random generation tables. For improvisational purposes, a detailed-yet-brief prompt is a strong start... for emergent narrative? I have usually defaulted to very neutral items in my tables (but was I using those for generative worlds? or what even is that if I misunderstand?) and let improvisation and the depth of the setting inspire details. Anyway, there's loads of stuff to explore in this space.

9. There is no one *DREAM. Anyone who commits to these principles is *DREAMing.
        Excellent.

I look forward to seeing what comes out of the *DREAMJAM so we can see what up in this scene.

Strands of Fate

This is the full text of a game I just made up for the 2017 200 Word RPG Competition:

***

Strands of Fate

It is a time of myths and legends. Before you lie two cotton threads, each one metre long.

Each of you is a deity, responsible for an important concept (like Love, or Honour) and two Chosen Ones, OR two minor concepts/elements (like Fire, or Hospitality) and one Legendary Hero.

The Heroes and Chosen Ones are your pawns in a story of adventure, betrayal, magic, and secrets. A pawn chosen by fate--a roll of the dice--is the protagonist. A deity chosen by fate creates a sacred artifact that the protagonist must find. Another deity chosen by fate is the antagonist, and works to prevent the protagonist's success. Other deities choose their own paths, and should make bargains. Tell each other the tale.

Whenever there is conflict or the opportunity for interesting failure, two deities wrap the ends of a chosen thread around their fingers, and pull sharply to break it. Whoever ends with the longer piece succeeds--the shorter piece means a setback. If the pieces are the same length, someone is granted a boon. Both pieces of thread are returned to the table. If the thread doesn't break, there is a catastrophe.

***

Inspired by breaking a thread off a frayed jacket, and written entirely in about 45 minutes.

If you try playing it, let me know how it goes!

A Critical Hit

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: most challenging but rewarding system you've learned.

By far the most complex system I've played regularly is D&D 3-3.5. The amount of feats, prestige classes, and subsystems for things like grappling just sent my head spinning. And since it was my first proper experience with roleplaying, I tried to learn it all so I could "play it right".

While I no longer think it's a system I'd want to run again (and Pathfinder doesn't really appeal either), I'm -glad- that there was so much complexity. It gave something interesting to engage in, and the promise of the same sort of strategic depth that Magic: the Gathering had. I'm not sure I would have stayed interested in roleplaying if not for that perceived depth. You can probably tell by my hedging language that I no longer believe this. I think the rules were bloated and the depth illusory, especially once you got into the OGL d20 third-party supplements. The enormous success of 3rd ed and the OGL spawned an incredible ecosystem of games.

Once I had a grasp of d20, there was this whole wide world of other settings and games built on it, and through them I discovered the enormous variety in tabletop gaming. The separation of system and setting really intrigued me, and I think some of the design decisions I like in games is related to that, as is an enduring interest in generic game systems. Expanding beyond D&D was possible because I could try running d20 Modern and Mutants and Masterminds--a trail of breadcrumbs leading to different types of games.

I also don't think I would be as interested in story games and rules-lite systems if I wasn't responding to the crunchiness of 3.5 (and later, 4e). I wouldn't have as broad an interest in roleplaying games either. And I might not even have kept roleplaying in the first place! So thanks, 3rd ed, for being a useful stepping stone.

On-the-Job Training

Today's #RPGaDay2016 prompt is: what's the best way to learn a new game?

When I get interested in a system, my first step is to look for a set of free quick-start rules. A read-through of these is usually quite short and gives a good feel for the core elements of the system, as well as the tone and key themes of the setting. This is an option for a good amount of systems, and sometimes the free rules are quite extensive (like with D&D 5e Basic). Even if there's no quickstart, the full rulebook might contain a sample session, or lots of sidebars highlighting key concepts. Probably the best way to learn a game thoroughly is to start with a well-designed rulebook!

Unfortunately not all systems have a quick-start, sample adventure, or particularly helpful design. In these situations, I look for a cheat sheet of the most important rules. Often these will be created by players rather than included in the rulebook, so the first place I look is G+ communities for the game or in the files section on RPGGeek. I also find that the cheat sheet gives a quick visual overview of how crunchy a game system is, and similarly I can get a sense of how much there is to learn by seeing the number of rules questions/clarifications I can find for the game on rpg.stackexchange.

More often than not, after a look at a quickstart and/or a cheat sheet we should just start playing and see how it goes, though this can be difficult if the players aren't comfortable with winging it. Sometimes I'll solo a session of the game to get a feel, and make notes of details to look up later for clarification. Ultimately, it's desirable to pick it up as we go, and handwave anything we're not sure about. I'm not overly concerned with running the system exactly as written, and the more rules there are to learn the less likely I am to want to learn it in the first place. Perhaps particularly complex rule systems can't be learned just through play--I can't imagine just picking up Rifts--but who's got the time for that anymore? Rules-lite and good summary design is the way to go!